The Darkness Looks Back at you
The Words of Darkness website is a gaming resource for fans of popular roleplaying games Vampire: the Masquerade, Mage: the Ascension, Werewolf: the Apocalypse, etc. I felt that the internet was sorely lacking in current and updated content for fans of those games, relegated to sparse articles on Geek and Sundry, Polygon, Bleeding Cool, and various others. This is hugely imbalanced by the amount of articles that you can find on playing or running "traditional fantasy" roleplaying games. Words of Darkness is a website that aims to give you advice on storytelling, ideas for making your own player characters, ways of building chronicles, structuring plots, (hopefully) viewing inspirational art, interesting Non Player Characters that you can add in to your chronicles, and learning more about the World of Darkness itself. I have 19 years of experience (and counting) with roleplaying and storytelling, and I want to share that experience with as many people as possible! If there's something you would like to see that isn't already here, just let us know and we'll be glad to work on it.
Peter
Peter began roleplaying in December of 1999, with a strange game called Mage: The Sorcerers Crusade. While his friends used it as a gateway and quickly fell into the intrigues of Vampire: the Masquerade, Peter found the concepts of Spheres and ideological struggles between Science, Faith, and Religion to be much more interesting. Playing VtM with his friends allowed for a basic framework of the setting and rules, but Mage won his heart. Thus began an almost 20 year obsession with the World of Darkness, a love that persists through the modern day. Peter always gravitated toward the role of Storyteller, preferring to build the world, construct the plot, and provide the story for his players. He’s most recently been involved in a meta-chronicle that has lasted for over 6 years, his players alternating in their roles between Kindred, Garou, and Magi. As such, Peter has years of experience with Vampire: the Masquerade, Werewolf: the Apocalypse, and Mage: the Ascension.
Allen
Getting into a new group of gamers can be difficult, and getting into your first group is even harder. D&D was the most popular tabletop RPG growing up, but finding a group as well as not having any money for the books was frustrating. Mage the Ascension kept showing up at used book stores, and I always felt drawn to it. Once I had the opportunity to talk with a few people who had experience running the game, it gave me the confidence to buy a copy… or 2. I took at least a year of cramming rules and getting inspiration before I was ready to ST (or DM) a game. In the meantime I found some chances to play with a few groups and started to notice some problems. Characters that had been painstakingly crafted with the guidance of the DM were turned into living NPCs for their own narrative. Choices were made irrelevant when the DM had Their story to tell. Sometimes all it takes is one bad game to inspire a new Storyteller to take the mantle, and that’s exactly what I did. Not all of us are lucky enough to find friends who have 18+ years of experience in our game of choice to help, but I was lucky enough to meet one. Now it's my turn to return the favor.
What forbidden things can you expect to see?
Essays from experienced Storytellers for all (most) of the game lines in the World of Darkness
Interesting NPCs, Plot Hooks, Chronicle Ideas, Artifacts, and similar resources for your games
Book reviews, including quality content from the Storytellers Vault
Fiction that evokes the setting and mood of the World of Darkness (mostly)